


something to behold

by MissFaber



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 'some people change your life forever' as the film tagline says, (or several), 1950s, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Domestic Violence, F/F, Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Meetings, Love Confessions, Physical Abuse, Travel, With A Twist, and sansa the ambitious therese, carol au, cersei is the glamorous carol, i love their conversations, oh i just really love this one, the really quick and intense intimacy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:06:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27549568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissFaber/pseuds/MissFaber
Summary: A pair of gloves, butter-soft and deep black, are left on Sansa Stark’s counter by a glamorous woman. When Sansa returns them, a surprisingly intimate relationship begins with the captivating and complex Cersei Lannister— a relationship that takes her west and down a brilliant, heartbreaking path.
Relationships: Cersei Lannister/Sansa Stark
Comments: 9
Kudos: 29





	something to behold

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly just feel lucky to write this!!! what a strange thing to say. but it flew out of me once the idea came, and I’m obsessed. Written for Sapphic Sansa Fest. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
> 
> [check out the photoset for this fic!](https://missfaber.tumblr.com/post/634717077299740672/something-to-behold-xxx-a-sansa-x-cersei)

_**she is something to behold,** _

_**elegant and bold,** _

_**she is electricity running through my soul**_

It was on the day they gave out the Christmas hats, by far the worst day of the year, that Cersei Lannister left her gloves on Sansa Stark’s counter.

 _An accident,_ Sansa thought as she felt their buttery softness against her fingertips, even as her heartbeat skipped ahead. _Surely an accident._

They were fine leather gloves, the brand instantly recognizable— not due to the eight months Sansa spent manning the leather goods counter, but because she’d seen the stamped three feathers and the crown on her mothers’ hands.

Still, they were finer than anything Sansa owned now. Surely they should be returned.

A flutter in her stomach, Sansa Stark marched determinedly down to the billing department, ignoring the floor manager’s shrill calls.

* * *

Earlier that day, Sansa had not been thanking the fates for dropping two size seven point five luxury gloves into her lap, but bemoaning them. The standard issue Santa hats they distributed to the Frankenberg’s employees were horrifically communal, and Sansa was sure that hers was giving her an itch. But the floor manager seemed to have a signal attuned to Sansa’s head; every time the hat was removed, her sharp and beady gaze would turn to her, the command made wordlessly.

Today she was working the doll counter; a testament to her skills, nearly a promotion, for the custom dolls were one of the season’s products highest in demand. Soon the double doors would open, their own modern parting of the seas, bringing with it a slew of mothers and grandmothers wrapped in furs. The challenge didn’t excite her, only resulted in a resounding echo of weariness in her head.

Sansa sighed, reminding herself to have two cups of coffee tomorrow. She liked to take pride in her work, even if it was the unique hellscape of high-end retail in December and not the work of looking through a lens.

Cersei Lannister was her eleventh customer that morning, and although Sansa did not know her name then she knew instantly this woman was separate from the pack. Although she looked like them, with her mink stole and her perfectly coiffed golden hair, she was not one of them. Her discerning eye saw instantly the innate separate-ness, the distance between her and the others. She saw, too, that it was she who wanted that distance there.

As she approached the counter, Sansa was struck by the lifelessness in the emerald eyes that would otherwise shine like jewels. _Oh._ Her hands itched for a camera.

“I’m hoping you can help me,” the woman started without looking directly at her. _Of course—_ she was different, but not _that_ different. To her, Sansa was only one of the help.

“Of course,” Sansa replied in her light but balanced Saleswoman’s Voice, the one that kept a roof over her head while she sent her photos into publications. “Is there anything in particular you’d like to ask about?” She waited a moment, just one, and plowed on. “If not, I’d love to make a recommendation. The Betsy doll is on every little girl’s list this season.”

“My daughter is eleven.” Now the woman looked at her, meeting her gaze directly. A spark lit somewhere behind her deep green eyes; slowly, the bustle of the store fell away, so that when she spoke next her words rang in Sansa’s ears. “I worry she might be too worldly to be enchanted by dolls.”

“She might be,” Sansa said conversationally. It had been her experience that it was a more successful strategy to make honest conversation than to overtly steer the customer to accept the sale. “In my experience, interest in dolls depends entirely on personality, not age.”

The woman smiled; not an overt thing, the merest quirk of the lips. Easily missed, were Sansa not looking so close. “Did you like to play with dolls?”

“I did,” Sansa smiled back, widely, letting delight show in her face. “Until the ripe old age of sixteen.”

The woman leaned forward, resting her arms feather-light on the glass counter. “And after sixteen?”

“A paint set,” Sansa said after a heartbeat of thought. “An easel and oils and watercolors to rival Monet’s.”

Her eyes narrowed, appraising and glowing like a lioness’s. “My Myrcella has some artistic talent.” She clicked her purse open. “Paint set it is,” she announced with a sly wink.

“I’m afraid that’s another floor,” Sansa said, already accepting she’d lost the sale. Somehow, it wasn’t the sale that felt like a loss, but the end of the conversation. “I would direct you, but I can’t leave this counter.”

The woman didn’t bat an eyelash. “I’m afraid I won’t be buying anything unless it’s from your hands, Miss… Stark.” She leaned in closer than she needed to read the name, close enough that Sansa caught the edges of the most incredible smell. Morning dew and musk. “Your store will lose a sale of their most expensive paint set unless you sell it to me. I daresay you’re just doing your job.”

Clearly, this was a woman accustomed to getting what she wanted. Sansa couldn’t find it in herself to mind.

* * *

The letter came on a Tuesday, the bulk of the envelope betraying its contents, turning the drab day bright.

“You won’t really spend Christmas alone,” Robert was grunting behind her, somewhere in the kitchen. “It’s depressing.”

“I’m certainly not spending it with your family, Robert, when you’ve served me with divorce papers.”

“They don’t know, don’t worry.” His words gushed around something soft in his mouth. Cersei fanned herself to keep from hurling.

“I know, and you know, Robert.” She tucked the envelope into her larger Birkin and stepped into the kitchen doorway to talk face to face. It would facilitate understanding, and the conversation would end more quickly.

He was shifty eyed, clearly hiding something. “No one should be alone on the holidays.”

“I won’t be. My brothers are coming into town.”

He barked, spraying something she didn’t want to think about. “Ha! So you’ll be blind drunk instead of watching your daughter open presents on Christmas morning.”

Cersei blinked at him slowly. He conceded first, dropping his eyes and nearly shrinking away from her lethal gaze. “Then leave her with me,” she said evenly, her heart lurching with hope even as she knew it was impossible.

“Ah, well… truth is, she won’t come unless you do.”

Cersei fought to keep the delight from her face, knowing Robert would never confess this to her unless Myrcella had really put her foot down. _That’s my girl._

“So do this favor for your daughter and come along.”

“There’s the rub. I thought there was something suspicious about you fighting for me on your own account.”

She’d loved him once— stupidly, fiercely and quickly, like the explosion and subsequent evaporation of a firework. There was nothing left of the dashing, black-haired mogul she’d met. But it pained her, sometimes, when she let herself be soft, to look at him and know how much he hated her. How much she hated him.

“No.” His voice had dropped; and somehow, just like that, he was raring for a fight. “I’d love it, I’d fucking _love_ to spend the holidays without you. Is that what you want to hear?”

Cersei responded placidly, “You’ll get your wish.”

“My wish?” He shook his head; spittle clung to his lips. The burst capillaries on his nose looked obscene, reddened by his anger. “All you had to do was watch your figure, look pretty, raise our daughter and host the occasional society lunch.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“And you could have lived in this house, have everything you could want, easiest fucking life—”

“The Lannisters have more money than you could wrap your head around, Robert,” she interrupted sharply. “Do not for a moment make the mistake of thinking I ever needed you.”

His nostrils flared. “And don’t ever think I wanted _you,”_ he spat. He shook his head, laughed. “You messed up. You messed up when you shamed me, and now you’ll lose your daughter.”

She’d been watching this display of bullish anger evenly, but now her heartbeat spiked. “We’ve drafted a custody agreement, Robert.”

“Because I have no _evidence._ I’d fight to take her from you if I could, Cersei, I promise, but as it stands the state thinks Myrcella needs her mother.”

Her temper, a beast in its own right, reared its head. “So the _state_ expects me to sit silently for years while you take your whores, but I have _one_ affair and—”

He marched towards her, a bull charging, and waved a meaty finger in her face. “You thank your lucky stars for your—” He sniveled. _“Perversion_. Because if it was a man who got inside you, if you _let_ another man fuck you then I promise you’d be dead.”

Cersei breathed in shallowly through her nose before meeting his gaze head on. “And who says I wasn’t thoroughly _fucked?”_

His lip twitched back into a snarl; sweat beaded there. She pushed.

“That one of her fingers was a hundred times better than your little prick ever was, laying on top of me like the _sloth_ you are—”

The slap cracked through her skull, knocking her teeth together. When she opened her eyes her head was turned towards the counter, not towards him.

“I’m a better man than you’ll ever be.” She said it wickedly, licking her mouth. She tasted blood. _Worth it._ “That’s the truth.”

Robert snarled and bowled past her. A moment later she heard him storm out of the house. No matter. Cersei’s mind was already past it, planning her response to the letter in the bag she still clutched tightly in her fist. She would call Frankenberg’s and plan a lunch with Miss Stark.

* * *

Sansa wore her favorite silk blouse to work on Thursday, though she rarely trotted out items from her old wardrobe to Frankenberg’s. She didn’t need any further reason for the floor manager to scowl at her, even if she’d proven she was the best of the group. The woman had a personal dislike for her, Sansa had decided—and as it could not be helped, it was not her concern. The blouse was a deep, Christmas-tree-green, a most flattering choice for her coloring. She would cover it with a sweater until lunch.

The moment the clock struck twelve, Sansa was flying out the door. She’d had one eye on her watch all day.

Cersei—for that was her name, learned in the bowels of the Billing department, _Cersei Baratheon_ of Cattlecut Lane—had chosen one of the higher end restaurants on Madison Avenue, a place Sansa hadn’t stepped foot in in her time in New York. Dickon made good money, but he didn’t like to spend it on “overpriced” food, as he believed that one was paying for ambience, and all food over a certain caliber tasted the same. She wasn’t sure if she disagreed with him. Dickon preferred to spend his money on a good malt and cigars, and if he wanted to treat Sansa—which was often—it was first editions, gallery trips or a nice perfume. He was cultured. Sansa liked that about him.

She allowed the maître d to take her coat. Her blouse felt appropriate here, along with the sleek heeled boots she’d pulled out of retirement and the Hermes scarf twisted into her hair.

Five minutes passed until Cersei arrived, and although Sansa knew there was power in arriving late, she couldn’t bring herself to regret her eagerness. She wasn’t sure she was capable of anything else today. Besides, it gave her time to examine the wine list at length and make her selection.

“What a divine color,” Cersei said by way of greeting, bending to not-quite kiss her cheek. 

_You look wonderful,_ Sansa heard, and color rose in her cheeks.

“Likewise,” she said confidently, hoping to cover up her girlish reaction. “Red becomes you.”

Blood red, the cravat at Cersei’s throat and the pocket square poking out of her houndstooth suit. The bottom of her heels. Her lips were lacquered with it, the plump curves outlined and filled perfectly. Sansa wondered if they’d leave prints on the glasses, on the silverware, on everything they touched.

Cersei ordered a dry martini from the appropriately silent waiter and made a show of straightening her hair, though the strong winter wind hadn’t knocked a hair out of place. Sansa noticed a gold ring with a deep, gunmetal jewel, like something that would be found deep within in a mountain.

“Stark is a strong name,” she started. “Thoroughly English.”

“I think so,” Sansa said as she glanced at the menu, quickly deciding on her order so that she wouldn’t be unprepared. “Ancestry is a tricky thing.”

“It matters or it doesn’t, depending on which option favors you.”

Sansa nodded. “I’d say I’m somewhere squarely in between right now.”

Cersei wordlessly offered her a cigarette, which Sansa took. They were slim and foreign to her, an Italian brand. “What else do they call you, Miss Stark?”

A charming way to ask. “Sansa.”

“Sansa Stark.” She said her name slowly, visibly rolling it in her mouth. Tasting it. “Lovely.”

“Thank you. Cersei Baratheon is a unique name, very pretty.”

“Lannister.” Smoke blew from those red, red lips. “Cersei Lannister.”

Sansa took a drag of her own cigarette, wondering if she’d somehow misstepped. “Even better.”

That slight quirk of a grin. “We’re divorcing.”

That explained the lack of a wedding ring. The thought of a husband, even one on his way out, was unpleasant. Though Sansa had known, of course, that there must be one for a woman like this. And she had Dickon.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Cersei looked thoroughly sincere when she said, “I’m not.”

Sansa stared at her, this fierce woman sitting perfectly still with her frozen martini glass and her golden lion broach at her throat, and had the strange thought she should be elsewhere, posing for a Botticelli or lording over a kingdom.

“May I take your order?”

Cersei’s eyes never left hers when she said, without consulting the menu, “Creamed spinach over poached egg.”

Sansa smiled slowly. “That’s what I was going to get.”

Cersei smiled then, a true smile that stretched her mouth. “How serendipitous.” 

The waiter retreated as silently as he’d arrived, and Sansa took a careful sip of her Chardonnay. She wondered which of them would break eye contact first.

“Do you live alone, Sansa Stark?”

“I do.”

Cersei tilted her head somewhat wistfully. “I’ve never done that. I wish I had, now.”

“Regrets are like poison,” Sansa said. “But I’m sure you’ve done some wonderful things instead.”

Cersei quirked a brow. “Do you live your life without regret, Miss Stark?”

“Sansa,” she prompted. “And I try. That’s why I moved to the city, to pursue my dream.”

“Oh? What dream is that?”

“I take pictures,” Sansa confessed, suddenly shy. It was something she always spoke of with lifted chin, but she wondered if it would hold up to Cersei’s surely severe scrutiny. “I want to work for major publications one day. The _Times. National Geographic.”_

“An artist.” Cersei smiled again, cigarette twirling between her fingers. “How I envy you, Sansa. You must feel so free.”

“It’s not without sacrifice,” Sansa said, feeling somehow freed by Cersei’s admiration. “My apartment is a shoebox, the icebox never works. It sits above a restaurant, as the sounds and smells constantly remind me.”

“Glamorous,” Cersei drawled, clearly amused.

“Anything but,” Sansa grinned back. She felt chatty, as she never did around her coworkers or city acquaintances. They were, none of them, quite friends. “Dickon sees it as squalor… he wants me to give it up, live with him instead. That is, after we marry.”

“I see.” Cersei broke their gaze, tapped her cigarette over the ashtray. In a slightly diminished tone, she asked, “Do you want to marry him?”

Profound relief struck her at the mere question. No one had thought to ask it—everyone she knew seemed to think Dickon was a catch.

“Do you ever feel like… you’re watching your life happen? You look at your life and find it _completely_ foreign, like watching someone else in your body?” 

Cersei blinked slowly. “Yes.”

“I only feel that when I’m with Dickon.” Sansa breathed in deeply. “He’s a good man, but… to be perfectly honest, it’s a decision I’m struggling with. Since we’re speaking of regrets and all.”

“Marriage is an irreversible decision if there ever was one.”

She wasn’t sure how true that was. “You’ve reversed it.”

“You don’t want to follow in my footsteps, Sansa.” A wry smile as the dwindling cigarette was left to die on the ashtray. “Trust me.”

A steaming plate was placed before her, and a comfortable silence fell as they took their first bites. Robust, earthy flavor coated Sansa’s tongue. She felt warmer than she’d felt all winter.

“My only non-regret,” Cersei spoke after a long sip. “Is Myrcella.”

Sansa smiled. “It must be lovely to have a daughter.” 

Smiling, Cersei drew a gilded photograph from her clutch and held it across the table. Sansa took it gingerly, examining the beautiful girl with the gold ringlets, their luster apparent even through the black and white print.

“Oh, she looks like you,” Sansa breathed. “Her eyes, her chin...”

“She was lucky to inherit the Lannister hair.” Admiration is apparent in Cersei’s tone, and it plucks at Sansa’s heart. “I haven’t given her much more than that, I’m afraid.”

“I doubt that.”

Cersei tilts her head. “You seem to have a high opinion of me despite not knowing me very well.”

Sansa cleared her throat, meeting the older woman’s gaze steadily. “I can say the same of you.”

Her eyes twinkled with approval, with mirth, and Sansa decided she’d like to watch them shift for a very long time.

“I was glad it was you who returned my gloves.” Though Cersei’s tone was always contained, something peeked through. Something that brought that fluttering back in Sansa’s gut. “I could have forgotten them in a few other departments, with a few other salespeople I spoke to that day.”

Sansa felt unsteady, as if she were standing with her skis at the very top of the black hill in Vail. She needed balance. “Would you not have taken them to lunch?”

“No,” she replied, totally, intensely.

Sansa swallowed a sip of wine, hoping it would cool her throat. No, she needed water. “Well, I’m honored you could fit me into your schedule so soon.” It was only Thursday.

“I would have come into the city any day of this week, or the next.” Cersei pinned her with her eyes. “Does that frighten you?”

“A bit.” There was no point in lying, not to her. “Does that excite you?”

She believed she saw a flare of surprise in Cersei’s eyes before it was overcome, and Sansa fought to hide her grin. She would prove to be a more than worthy match.

Perfectly painted red ovals over the wood—tap tap tap. When Cersei opened her mouth to answer, Sansa forgot the game—her eye caught the shadow of something blooming darkly at the base of her jaw.

“What’s that?”

Cersei’s face fell open with confusion—a sweet thing—but Sansa was too preoccupied to taste it, sitting up and leaning across the table to trail a finger gently across the bruise. She could feel the slide of cream and powder meant to cover it beneath her fingertip.

Cersei didn’t flinch. When Sansa pulled back, she opened her purse and drew a compact, examining her neck.

 _“That_ is the cost of marriage to a boar.” She snapped her compact shut, smiled tightly. “I’m sorry, Sansa, you’ll have to excuse me. I’ll just pop into the restroom.” 

“Then I’m not sorry you’re divorcing him either,” she said before she could think. Rage did that to her. “In fact, I wish he was dead.”

Cersei paused, regarding her with eyebrows raised. “Oh?”

Sansa nodded, heat flooding her ears.

Abandoning her exit, Cersei leaned forward so that her face was all Sansa saw. “You’d kill for me, would you?”

“Yes.” It was a jest, but Sansa said it firmly. “But he’s lost you, and perhaps that’s a fate worse than death.”

Drink made her brave, or perhaps foolish. Her breath sat frozen in her throat until Cersei reacted to her bold claim. “What do you do on Sundays?”

A beat of confusion. “Nothing in particular.”

“I have some time on Sunday. You can visit me, if you’d like to get out of the city. I’d pick you up, of course, it’s a lovely drive… would you like to see me on Sunday?”

A smile bloomed slow on Sansa’s face, heavy and sweet as wine.

**Author's Note:**

> lyrics at the top from Vance Joy's "Georgia"


End file.
